


Another one bites the dust...

by HikariYumi



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Grieving Tony Stark, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Loki (Marvel) Lives, No character death that hasn’t been been in Infinity War, POV Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, it just doesn’t fix anything really except
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-01 09:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14517045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HikariYumi/pseuds/HikariYumi
Summary: THE SUMMARY CONTAINS INFINITY WAR PART 1 SPOILERS!Thanos is gone, half the world has vanished into dust and Tony is still on Titan. When he makes it back to Earth he is hit with the afterffects of Thanos doings. In the middle of finding Loki and grieving for the boy he’d started to see as his own kid, Hulk still refuses to come out.





	1. Return

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Majinie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Majinie/gifts), [TaliesinJoan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaliesinJoan/gifts).



>   
> Hello and thank you for swinging by.  
> This is my attempt of a fix it for Infinity war.  
> First I’ve planned to decide this into three parts for three plot points I wanted to address, but then I realised that the first one is incredibly long so I might go with only two instead.
> 
> I hope you like it a bit  
> ~Hikari 
> 
>    
> This fic is not beta-read yet and I’m not a native speaker, so errors may occour.
> 
> If you want to know, the three ‘plot points’ are:  
> \- Loki is alive  
> \- Tony tells Bruce about what happened on Titan  
> \- Bruce and Hulk communicate

Another one bites the dust

“My ship lies in that direction.”  
The blue-skinned, android-like creature stared down at him. She had called herself Nebula and apparently she was Thanos’ other kid, clearly the lesser loved one.

Tony very slowly raised his head to meet the creature’s eyes.   
They were the only two remaining lives on this god forsaken wasteland of a planet and Tony at least would have problems leaving on his own. 

Certainly the Guardians must have left their ship they had arrived with somewhere close as well, but Tony didn’t know how to operate it, much less where to go in the first place.  
Also, if he could help it he didn’t want to use the belongings of a bunch of people he’d seen dying just minutes ago. People Tony might not have known well, but enough to realise that the crew had been good folks, a family.

“Could you drop me off on Earth?” And wasn’t that a weird thing to say? “Or Midgard, however you call it.”

Actually going back home was the last thing Tony wanted to do. He didn’t want to learn who else had died, if Pepper was still waiting for him, if Rhodey had been safe, and if this had been the one thing that had managed to kill the Hulk and in extension, Bruce.

Tony was aware that he was being selfish, he wished for his friends, the family of his own making, to have been spared from the madness that was Thanos plan, hoping that strangers would’ve died in their place. 

Going back to Earth would also mean that the last hours had actually taken place. Right now everything still felt surreal, just as it had been all those years ago in the wormhole. Tony saw things he never thought he would, never wanted to if he was being honest.   
As long as he stayed here, sitting in the dirt mingled with ashes that had been real people not too long ago, Tony could pretend he was dreaming, that Peter Parker dying in his arms was nothing more than one of his nightmares.

As soon as Tony would return home alone he would have to face consequences of this fight and his decisions. He would have to find May Parker, explaining to her that her seventeen year old nephew had vanished out of existence by a genocidal alien titan, thousands of light years away.  
Tony swallowed upon realising that he might be spared of that conversation if May also belonged to the now dead half of humanity.

“We call it ‘Terra’ here.”  
Nebula still hadn’t taken her eyes off him.  
“I’ll bring you back to your planet if i can stay there as well.”

There was a gleam in the woman’s eyes, deep emotion that seemed as odds with her inhuman appearance. On the other hand, she’d just lost her sister through the hands of her father and who knew whom of those she considered a friend were still alive. 

“What will you do on Earth?”

“Fight at your side against Thanos.”

Tony sighed deeply, completely aware that he was the wrong person to make a decision like that, but he didn’t even know how the state of the earth was right now. Half of the population suddenly vanishing meant confusion and helplessness in the best and anarchy in the worst case.

“I can’t make any promises but I will try my best.”  
And he would, not because they could use every fighter they could get their hands on to stop Thanos, but because Tony couldn’t stand the idea of abandoning another person.  
“That is everything I can ask for.”

Despite the low gravity on the planet, it felt as if Tony was miles deep underwater when he tried to get up from the ground. Every inch of his body felt heavy with exhaustion and shock, additionally the motion tugged painfully at the quickly sealed wound.  
Finally Tony managed to rise to his feet and stagger alongside Nebula to her ship. It was way smaller than the flying ring that they had come with and looked a lot more like an actual spaceship.

They boarded in silence, Nebulas fingers quickly flickered through holographic menus, most likely setting coordinates or something along the line. Normally Tony would try to gain as many information as he could, but right now the only thing he felt like able to do was stare out into the open space.

In a way it looked so very different from the pictures that used to haunt him at night and day, maybe his fear had fuelled the images over time, changing and morphing them.  
It was still terrifying.  
Tony could feel his heart beat faster only from looking at the endless, cold dark. Mostly empty void with powerful enemies lurking behind the darkness.

Still Tony couldn’t stop himself from staring out of the window as the ship slid nearly seamlessly through space. It didn’t feel like flying at all, it held nothing of the thrill Tony experienced while in the suit or even in one of his jets.   
Under his hand the stab wound was pounding in synch with this heartbeat, Tony knew as soon as he was back on earth he had to take care of it more properly. 

After all Peters spiderwebs hadn’t ever been intended for this purpose at all, but Tony was sure with time the kid would’ve explored this possibility as well. Time he would now never have.  
Tony’s fingers dug into his flesh, hard enough that he could feel warm blood seep through the webbing.

Suddenly the ship slowed down significantly enough the Tony was startled out of his thoughts.  
“What happened?”  
Outside of the window there was still nothing besides endless void, no way that they’d already reached earth. Maybe the ship had broken down?

“Look for yourself.”  
Nebulas vague answer did nothing to calm Tony’s flayed nerves, so he forced himself to make the few steps to the cockpit area.  
Right in front of them was floating something big and blue. At first Tony thought it might be someone like Nebula, but upon closer inspection he could rule this idea out. 

“What shall we do?”  
The creature outside of the ship didn’t move, it’s long but slender appendages appeared to be limp. Tony couldn’t help but compare it to someone floating on water, even though the facial expression didn’t look peaceful at all.

Nebula turned her head and regarded him with a contemplative gaze.  
“I don’t know which race it belongs to, but I don’t doubt that if we leave it like this it is going to die.”  
It was a mystery how the creature could still be alive at all, how long was it in this place? How did it get there? Was this another one of Thanos victims?

“We should take it in then.”  
Tony wasn’t sure if his companion approved of this decision or why she had left it up to him in the first place, but he didn’t feel like wondering about it.

The whole part of bringing the stranger into the ship proved to pose a problem on it’s own. Eventually the blue giant laid on the spaceships floor, effectively using up most of the room in the tiny vehicle.  
Now that Tony could take a closer look he could make out tiny lines of silver, barely noticeable on the increasingly paling blue skin. He wasn’t sure if the change in colour was a good or bad thing, but at least the strangers face looked more relaxed than before.

Tony reached out less hesitating than he felt, and carefully placed a hand on the giants shoulder. The skin was ice cold, but different from how dead bodies felt like, the opposite of how warm Peter’s vanishing form had been.  
Under his touch the blue grew even lighter and warmed so rapidly that it felt unreal. Maybe the creature was behaving like reptiles on earth did?

“Hey, hey. Are you with us?”  
After all the ministrations it had taken to bring the giant inside it was the gentle shaking that made him wake up. The whole body grow tight as a bowstring and eyes snapped upon revealing blood red irises.

Immediately Tony and the approaching Nebula jumped back, taking defensive stances as well as it was possible in the limited room they had.  
In Tony’s case it meant that he stood half-crouched, shielding his arc-reactor as well as his oozing wound.

In front of their eyes the creature rose to its feet, body displaying the elegance of a predatory animal before attack, and then slowly but steadily changing into a different form.

The blue was completely gone, made room for pale, but humanlike colour and even the size of the giant seemed to decrease.   
Over the span of a handful seconds the strange alien had turned into the familiar face of Thor’s brother. Loki.

Instinctively Tony tried to take a step back, bring a bit more room between himself and the man who’d launched an army onto New York all those years ago. It was no use, Tony’s back collided with the wall of the ship, provoking Loki to focus solely on him.

“Stark.”  
It wasn’t the smooth and cunning voice Tony had been introduced to six years prior, it was scratchy and he was in general not as put together as he had been before. Wasn’t Loki supposed to be in a cell in Asgard? And if he’d been released why wasn’t Thor with him?  
“Loki.”

Nebula watched the two of them narrowedly without saying a word, most likely waiting for them to say something. Surprisingly though Tony couldn’t ask any of the things currently whirring through his head. 

“What are you doing so far away from home?” Loki asked, sounding interested enough after glancing over at the cyborg next to him.  
“Fighting Thanos.”  
Tony wasn’t in the mood for quips or banter, he just wanted to go home and not-think about the past day.

“I won’t assume that you’ve won.”   
Every other time Tony would’ve taken it as provocation, as insult to his fighting, but today he took it as what it was, a realistic expectation. A true observation of Tony’s battered suit and body, the fact that only two people were on this ship after a fight against the currently most powerful being in the universe.  
“He must’ve gotten all the stones. Half of the world is gone.”  
“I see.”

There was no accusation that the Avengers had failed to protect the infinity stones, just acceptance.

“Did Heimdall manage to send the good doctor and the beast back to you?”  
Bruce had been with both of the Asgardians then, god, Tony still didn’t know what his friend had done in the years since the battle against Ultron. And maybe he would never know.  
“I met him before I came here, I don’t know if he is still alive.”

Loki nodded at him, a gaze laced with understanding and even sympathy. The god could relate, most likely faced a similar problem. Who even knew if Thor belonged to those people who had vanished.

“How did you get here? What were you doing in the middle of nothing?”  
After exchanging a quick look with Tony, Nebula returned to the pilot seat and restarted the engines. Apparently she had decided that Loki wasn’t their enemy, and for now Tony was willing to agree.

“Thanos captured our ship and the way to Midgard. I don’t know if you’ve been informed, but Asgard has been destroyed so Heimdall brought all the citizens he could rescue and we planned to evacuate. Your friend, the doctor was with us after we found him in form of the beast on another planet. Thanos detected us and to gain the Power stone inside of the tesseract he slaughtered all the fighters and civilians on board. The beast, my brother and I tried to fight but had to relent.”  
Tony blinked at the sudden sentiment of Loki calling Thor his brother, while struggling to understand when and how Asgard, advanced Asgard had been destroyed.

“Thanos exchanged the stone for Thor’s life and when I tried to attack him, he attempted to kill me.”  
Loki paused in his explanation, his eyes far away in thought before he returned to himself and continued: “Luckily I could trick him and escape after he left, but I was too weakened to teleport correctly. Instead of Thanos’ home planet I ended up here.”

The god shrugged and Tony realised that he must believe that all people on his ship had died, and maybe they did. It was a scary thought that Thanos might’ve wiped out the life of nearly all Asgardians without much effort.

“You’ve been not too far off then at least”, he offered, but Loki didn’t say anything else.

It was a subdued flight void of much more conversation. No one asked if the god could join them on their way to earth, they just continued their journey. Tony had decided that the topic of Loki wasn’t his problem, he’d had enough of his own already.

By the time the spaceship entered the atmosphere surrounding earth, the suit’s communication systems went back online. On other days this would lead to a certain proudness in the engineer, after all his systems had been profoundly damaged during the fight.

Swallowing hard Tony tapped into the connections he still could access. Foreseeably, the HUD was out of order, but the line to the sibling receiver built into War Machine was still usable. Scared if there still would be someone to answer him, Tony spoke:  
“Rhodey? Are you there?”

What followed might’ve been one of the most tense few seconds of waiting he’d ever lived through, but eventually he got rewarded by a breathless “Tony!” through the sizzling communicator.  
For now satisfied that his best friend was still alive, Tony pushed questions about the others away for later time.

“Where are you? Can you give me coordinates for a safe landing place?”  
Years into their friendship Rhodey had learned that ‘answers first, questions later’ was a good method with Tony in emergency situations. So he easily slipped into military mode and gave through all the needed data.  
Without losing time Nebula adjusted their route and left Tony to take care of everything else.

“You’re in Wakanda? Is Thanos still around? Give me some infos here.”  
On the other end Rhodey cleared his throat, forshadowing the following bad news.

“Thanos left after he got the mind stone and did whatever it was he did. Everyone who wasn’t with you fought here with us. Thor brought two others of a crew he’d encountered, but one of them died.”  
A long pause followed in which Tony didn’t dare to speak.  
“Most of us are dead, Tones.”

It felt as if his legs stopped working, as if his stomach was pulled down by a sudden burst of ten times the gravity. Tony knew that chances weren’t looking good, but hearing it confirmed was something else entirely.  
A cool hand pressed gently against his back, providing support without having been asked for it.  
Loki’s green eyes were dark.

“Yes, I’m the only one as well.” Tony’s voice broke at the thought of Peter, whose ash was still partially clinging to his hands. His voice broke for Steven Strange, who had seen the only possibility to make this turn out right and then vanished along with the rest. And lastly his voice broke for the Guardians, who apparently died leaving only one of their family behind.  
“But I found two others on the way. We’ll arrive together.”

“Do that.”   
Rhodeys voice was thick with emotion before he tapped out of the line. It seemed like misery knew no end.

Tony tried to smile at Loki. “It looks like Thor survived the attack on the ship.”  
The gods hand fell away while his lips quirked into a bitter smile.  
“The only question is if he’d lived through the second one as well.”  
Tony had nothing to reply to that.

Finally the spaceship hit ground, showing Tony Wakanda’s defences the first time in person. It was impressive.  
Outside of the ship a few people gathered, so Tony was the first one to get out. But before he could even realise who had come, he was enveloped by the strong arms he would recognise as his friends’ anywhere.

They didn’t speak, they just held each other for a few moments, long enough to reassure their frantic thoughts that the other one was safe.  
Tony stepped back to look over the small group, meeting faces he hadn’t seen in years. 

Natasha had grown old, older than she actually was. Her features had hardened further and her formally vibrant red hair had made room for common blonde. Next to her was Steve, a completely different man from the one Tony had fought in Siberia three years ago. He had lost his eternal youth, looking a lot like the veteran he was.  
And then there was Thor who apparently had survived again, but who’d also lost most of his formerly glamour.   
Bruce was with them, looking not much worse to wear than he had when he’d come through Steven Strange’s portal.

But the one thing that they had all in common was the look of loss engrained into every cell of their being. That, Tony could relate to.  
Apparently Rhodey had already informed Bruce, that Strange wouldn’t be coming back with him, since he didn’t ask or seemed surprised. 

Questions about Loki’s presence relieved themselves the moment Thor quickly closed the distance between himself and his brother and pulled him into a hug. The uttered words which accompanied that seemed to be enough of an explanation for the rest. But maybe Thor had already told them about the fall of Asgard, how should Tony know?

It was Steve who raised his voice first: “Do you belong to Rockets team?”  
Nebula regarded the Captain for a long second before she slowly replied. “No. But my sister did. I flew to Thanos’ planet myself, but arrived to late to be of help.”  
Tony guessed that Steve drew his own conclusions from the cyborg’s phrasing’s and apparently they made him amendable to her staying with them. 

To make an end to the useless standing around without doing something productive Tony asked: “Do we have a plan?”  
He winced inwardly as he remembered how just a few hours ago Star-Lords team had joked about their a dance off and had argued with him about the proceedings. He had been annoyed then, but right now he would take that over their deaths any time.

When his question was met with silence, Tony once again felt at a loss. Deciding then that he felt horrible enough to warrant to go somewhere quiet, Tony shrugged and turned to Bruce.  
“Not to be impolite here, but is there a place to rest for a bit? Since apparently there is nothing urgent happening right now, anyway.”

He should use the quiet for the time being, who knew when news from the outside world would leak through. The knowledge about the chaos and destruction that was most likely happening right now would lead to them springing into action. In the morning at the latest, the extent of the damage would be visible.

Instead of an answer, Bruce crept closer, eyes wandering over every inch of Tony’s body. The other man didn’t even need to say something, Tony knew that his friend had noticed the bloody underclothing, the telling hole that was partly in view under the shreds that was his armour.

“Have you been stabbed?” Bruce asked incredulously, loud enough to pull the others attention back to Tony. Before anyone, most likely Rhodey, could say something about the matter, he answered himself.  
“Kinda, yeah. I’ve taken care of it, but well...”

“You should know Tony, that this is one of the only scenarios where I don’t trust your assessment of ‘taken care of’. You are not only not resisting to rest up, you’re actually requesting it yourself, I can’t remember the last time that happened.”  
If he was being honest, Bruce hadn’t been there the past years to witness such a behaviour, not that it had occurred. But his point still stood.

“The people of Wakanda have offered us some place to sleep, so I’ll take you there and while I’m at it I’ll look at your wound.”  
It was oddly comforting to hear the no-nonsense voice Bruce had used with him all this time ago, so Tony went along with it easily enough.  
He turned around, but no one followed them, no one asked questions. Thor and Loki were standing close to each other as if they were worried the other one could still disappear like so many of the others did. 

Looking at them today it was hard to see a team, they all had changed, had been divided, but now they might be closer than they had been for a long time.   
Maybe this could be the opportunity to mend a few of the tears that had appeared between them.  
Just maybe.


	2. Reclaim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Tony talk about loss and the Hulk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello,
> 
> Thank you when you came back to read the second chapter or found this not fixing fix-it recently.  
> I honestly hope you’re not disappointed in how this continues, because I myself am not entirely happy with the result.
> 
> Anyway, I decided to not let the team interact with Tony since I’m positive that especially the Steve-Tony dialogue wouldn’t have worked out too well.  
> Instead I chose to concentrate on Bruce.
> 
> I hope you have a bit of fun  
> ~Hikari

Wakanda turned out to be more astounding than Tony had imagined it to be. Despite the recent attack of an alien army followed by Thanos himself, everything appeared mostly fine. Bruce told him that T’Challa had started evacuating the civil population early enough that there had been at least no casualties. And since Thanos and his children had only come to retrieve the mind stone, no one had actively attacked the city.

Still, Wakanda hadn’t been spared   
from the erasement of half the population, additionally to the deaths they had suffered on the battlefield. That’s why even though the civilians and surviving fighters had returned, Wakanda looked in pats like a ghost-town.

Shuri, T’challa’s sister was going to be the next queen after the ritual in a few days had taken place. Until now Tony had never met her, but he held the deepest respect for the young girl who managed to take over the reins of a country in such an emergency situation.   
Especially after she just lost her brother.

Quickly Tony dismissed the thought and turned his attention back to his friend. Bruce was still wearing some of Tony’s clothes which he was sure had never looked so rumpled before. They did nothing to help with the weird feeling of seeing the other man again after such a long time apart.

“Here it is.” Bruce announced when they reached a tiny house that very obviously had been lived in not too long ago. The other man took a quick look around before he frowned and added: “Rocket doesn’t seem to be here. But from what I’ve heard he also lost someone really important to him today.”

Was there no one who hadn’t just suffered a loss? Was no one out there who's loved ones were more than ash and dust?  
“He’ll come back when he’s ready”, Tony mumbled upon entering. He didn’t want to look around, to notice the little signs that proved that only hours ago a family had been living there without much care in the world.

Bruce carefully urged Tony over to one of the chairs next to a table. Without having been prompted he shed the remaining rest of the suit and let himself slump down into the seat.  
While his friend crouched down in front of him to take a closer look at the torn flesh, Tony asked uncharacteristically silent: “Everyone else... did they all..?

Bruce’s dark eyes found his, looking incredibly sad, before resting his hands on Tony’s legs. He wasn’t sure, if it was for his sake or his friend’s.  
“I’m afraid so. Shuri tried to save Vision but didn’t manage before Thanos found him, it looks like Wanda then vanished through the gauntlet’s effect. At least we couldn’t find her body afterwards.”

Bruce never had time to form a bond with Wanda, but he mourned her death as much as he did Vision’s. Now the only good thing Tony had managed to do during the whole Ultron debacle was gone as well.  
It hurt more than it should, after all he had been ‘just’ an Android with JARVIS’ voice, but Vision had become so much more to some of them. He might’ve been never told, but Tony knew about the intimate relationship Wanda have had with Vision, had seen the love slowly blossoming between the two of them.  
At least no one of them had to outlive the other, that would’ve made everything so much worse for them.

“And Bucky and Falcon, I don’t know how Steve will cope with that, losing both of his best friends. Especially like this.”   
Bruce’s eyes wandered into the distance, hands gripping just a tad tighter. Absently Tony wondered if his friend had been scared for him when he’d entered the space ship and left in it. Had he thought him dead?

“Those are all I know about, Tony. There seem to be an Ant-man and a Spiderman but I haven’t heard from either of them. Natasha said earlier that Clint is with Ant-man, but neither of them came to Wakanda or contacted us, so it’s not clear if they are still alive.”

Tony cleared his throat, to gather his voice.   
“Spiderman followed me into the spaceship. He... also died. He was the last one, after Strange and the other crew.”

After a long pause without words or motion it just felt right to add: “His name was Peter and he was a brilliant kid.”  
Tony looked down into his hands, saw the smudges, the only thing remaining from the boy who had been so scared of dying and had come to Tony of all people to help.  
But Tony had failed him.

“Do you want to tell me about him?”  
Bruce’s voice was gentle and kind, without doubt he realised what Peter had meant to him. And yes, Tony wanted, needed to talk about the stupid, brave kid that just wanted to help people, he really did.

Words didn’t come for a long while during which the other man examined Tony’s wound and started to clean it, but Bruce wasn’t impatient with him.

“These webs, he invented them, you know?” Tony began eventually. “They’re amazing, I couldn’t believe it when I first saw him swinging around with them on YouTube.”  
Bruce mhmed quietly, inviting him to go on.

“Kid’s only been seventeen, so young but still a better person than I ever was. He protected his neighbourhood, but when he saw the space ship, or whenever else he thought I would need help really, he came.”  
Tony laughed throatily.  
“Such an idiot, jumped headfirst into things way to big for him, for any of us and refused to leave. You know what he told me today? ‘There can't be a friendly neighbourhood spiderman if there's no neighbourhood.’ “

“He sounds like a character” Bruce smiled and stripped the remaining webs out of the bloody flesh as carefully as he was able to. It hurt enough that Tony’s view blacked out around the edges every now and then, but at least he was still alive. So he kept talking.

“He refused to kill people, even went out of his way to save the bad guys. I’m sure, he could’ve done so much more if he’d only had time.”  
Tony took a deep breath and raised a hand to wipe away a stray tear. His arm was trembling slightly.

He was aware that it wasn’t his fault that Peter had died. Thanos’ kills had been at random, it wouldn’t have changed a thing if the boy had been on the field trip with his class instead of on a strange planet in deep space. But it still felt as if Peter would be still there if it hadn’t been for Tony.

“You loved him a lot, didn’t you?”  
It wasn’t a question, really, Bruce knew. His eyes shone a bit, shared the respect Tony so obviously held for the kid.  
"How couldn't I? I'm sure you would've liked him, too."

In the past Tony had entertained the thought quite a few times, imagined how his old lab partner would meet the boy who'd tried to visit said labs as often as possible in his free time. He didn't doubt a second that they would've gotten along perfectly, Bruce most likely would've done a way better job keeping Peter safe than he had done, too.  
Tony pushed the thoughts away and concentrated back on the man in front of him.

“If you say so.”  
Silence fell upon them and Bruce tended Tony’s wound with the same calm efficiency he’d always displayed.  
There were a lot of things that could’ve been asked. Tony wanted, needed to know so many things that had happened to the other man on his time away. And vice versa, Bruce might want to know why the Avengers had broken up.

“It’s been a rough few years” he started and stared at a point outside of the houses window. Tony listened as Bruce pulled a chair over and sat down next to him, silently waiting.  
“I can’t argue with that.”  
A tiny uncertain smile blossomed in the other man’s lips.

And easy as that Tony explained the Socovia accords and how things had spiralled down from there. The decision of the team to separate, Steve trying to safe Bucky and eventually Siberia.  
Tony tried to be objective, at least as much as he could, he paid attention to make things look less drastic and painful as they had been.

Bruce listened and understood, after all this time still read between the lines, knew how to interpret Tony’s words to give a realistic view.  
In the end he felt better, it was a bit like coming home.

There was no judgement, for neither of the two sides. Bruce just nodded and thought about it, storing all the information away, going on. Tony had been scared to admit that he’d been at least partially siding with Thaddeus Ross, the man after all had caused his friend a lot of harm in the past.  
But there was nothing, just acceptance. If he wouldn’t be so relieved, he would be worried about it.

“You want to know where I’ve been after Ultron.”  
It wasn’t as much a question as stating a mere fact, so Tony didn’t bother to answer. Bruce took a deep breath and did the thing, the little nervous tick he’d already had when they’ve met. His hair had grown longer again in the past to years so him stroking back strands looked way more natural than it had before, but it wouldn’t fool Tony.

“Actually, I can’t tell you for sure because I don’t know myself.” Tony frowned but before he could inquire further, the other man replied to the unspoken question.  
“As you know it was Hulk who took the quinjet after the fight in Socovia and the next time I woke up I was on a strange planet where people loved the Hulk. That was when Thor told me I’ve missed two years.”

Bruce shrugged with a tiny half-smile, apologetic as well as awkward, trying to overplay the dread he had to feel upon this fact. At least Tony felt terrified at the thought of his friend losing years of his life.   
Because as much as he accepted and liked the Hulk, if he had grown strong enough to block Bruce out completely for two years, who knew what he would do the next time he wanted time on his own?

“Exactly” the other man smiled sadly “in some way I can be glad that he doesn’t want to come out anymore. After I met Thor and Loki they needed some allies for the fight to protect Asgard, so i had to change into the Hulk again. It was horrible to worry that I might never surface again.”

Tony decided to let the whole topic around Asgard and the other planet drop for now. He could cover the specifics later. Instead Tony slung his arm around his friends’ shoulders, in a way he’d had done back when they’d worked together, hoping that it would still be appreciated.

“What can I do? Talk to the big guy maybe?”   
He didn’t fear the Hulk, but talking would mean that Bruce had to transform once again.  
“I mean, it’s not perfect, but I don’t know what else we could do. Have you figured out why you’ve had problems with it earlier?”

Tony dawned that Bruce hadn’t hesitated a second to jump to their aid, even though he had admitted to be scared of transforming. Things like that made Tony be in awe with the strength that was Bruce Banner, even though the man himself failed to see it.

“No, um, I fought in the old Hulkbuster suit. Rhodes told your new AI to grant me access.” And again Bruce had the mind to look bashful upon confessing to have used a technology he’d helped to develop to aid protecting the world. Tony just couldn’t understand his friend sometimes.

“I’m glad that Rhodey looked out for you when I couldn’t.”   
No, he wouldn’t feel guilty about that, but he could be glad that he at least managed to be useful in a more passive way.  
“So Hulk still doesn’t want to come out? At all?”

As far as Tony could remember that never happened before. The big green alter ego never refused a fight, it was not only his nature but his pride.

Bruce bit his lip, thoughtful just like he’d been when there was an equation he couldn’t quite place.  
“I think I have an idea where this is coming from. Back on the ship, when Thanos attacked, that was the moment when I surfaced a bit more. At least that’s what makes sense, because I can remember what happened even if foggily. The time before, the travel from Asgard to said point in space is blank. But then suddenly, I have dim memories again.”

Bruce’s fingers started to fidget in his lap, but he didn’t move away from Tony’s arm.  
“He lost. Hulk never lost before, not against the army, not against the Abomination. But he didn’t stand a chance against Thanos even when he was still lacking most of the infinity stones.”

Tony could barely understand what kind of experience it must’ve been for the Hulk, the strongest of the earth’s mightiest heroes, to lose all of a sudden. Not succumbing after a long fight, but getting defeated without much trouble at all.

“That’s... a good reason to be scared.”  
Hell, Tony was sure everyone had been terrified of Thanos and what he wanted to do, did do in the end. He ended up murdering more people than anyone else with even less effort. His power was ridiculous and that was what made him so dangerous.   
Even now, if Thanos decided that half the world wasn’t enough, he could just snap again and end billions of lives again. 

Tony took a deep breath.  
“I’m scared too, big guy. And that’s why I can’t stop fighting. I’m too scared to just watch everything getting destroyed.”  
Bruce just stared at him, no trace of green in the brown eyes, but Tony hoped that Hulk was listening.  
“But I can’t fight alone, you know? I would lose as well, but do you remember New York? We fought together and won, and I’m sure we can do it again.”

Maybe he was being too optimistic, after all they all had fought and still Thanos had managed to get all the stones fairly easy. But Tony didn’t want to give up yet, not as long as they still could at least try.  
“All of us together. That includes you and Bruce as well, got it, big guy?”

Perhaps he didn’t reach the Hulk, or at least not for the time being, but it did make Bruce smile again.

Well, and the thought of the team standing together made Tony happy, too. He was sure that the last years had hurt everyone, not only him. Maybe it had been painful enough that they would grow together again, past the cuts that had been made.  
They all together, whoever was still there, could be family, could be home.

Steps grew louder as they approached. Many feet, all heavy and tired after a devastating day.  
When the door opened and revealed the other members of the team, Tony hoped, no prayed, that all the loss today would have at least one positive consequence.

Tony had lost his kid today, but he might have gotten at least his brothers and sister back. But they would need to talk, honestly talk, and after that when all was settled he would call Pepper. 

Following that Tony would ask Shuri for jet, making sure that first thing tomorrow he could fly back to New York to pay May Parker a visit.  
News like this had to be conveyed personally and as soon as possible. After all he could understand how crippling the fear for the family was.

And then, one step after another, Tony would set the world back together as much as he would be able to. He was aware that things may have changed forever and that Earth had a horrible time ahead, but he would do everything to help it live.


End file.
